


A Spider in the Dungeon

by spookspuff



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Magic, Animal Death, F/M, it's a spider.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-06 05:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1845970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookspuff/pseuds/spookspuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which James Potter tries to take his friend's advice to 'play things cool' to woo his beautiful neighbor, but things don't go according to plan. (originally posted to my tumblr account)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. James "Fearless" Potter

James really, really attempts to act as 'bachelor male' as possible. He succeeds, he believes, fairly well. Not as well as his best friend, that boy with the shaggy hair and the seven girlfriends, but he thinks he does alright. After all, the bespectacled young man gets to see that pretty red-haired girl when he goes outside to fetch his mail. What more could he possibly need?

They've never really spoken. Shared hellos and a 'Nice weather, eh?', but nothing much deeper than shallow small talk. He doesn't even remember her name. He doesn't even remember asking for her name, and he probably hasn't, the idiot. But in his mind, she's 'flat 107' for all intents and purposes. She is his lovely, sweet neighbor, and often times he wastes an hour wondering where on earth that poor girl found that tall grease-ball that frequently knocks and pleads, albeit fairly quietly, through her front door. He supposes that male is some ex-boyfriend or other and maybe 107 is too kind to tell him to bugger off. He'd do it for her, if he only knew her name.

He's settled for admiring her from afar. Sirius- the lady's man previously detailed- encourages him often to drop by, say hello, surely she couldn't resist you. James doesn't want to annoy her. Nothing would be worse than getting rejected by his neighbor.

Thus, he was shocked when sweet and beautiful 107 banged on his front door at half past eight. James had fallen asleep on the couch the night before in his pajamas (flannel pants and no shirt, mind you, he does live alone) and was forced to stumble toward the front of his flat murmuring curses. When he thrust open the door, any thought of confrontation evaporated at the absolutely devastated look on Miss 107's face. In fact, all thought was gone straight out of James' mind so quickly that he completely missed the scarlet flush that blossomed in his neighbor's cheeks while her green eyes stared at his bare chest.

"What's the matter?" She seemed a bit blurry without his glasses on, so he ducked a little to look her in the eyes. 107 stammered for a few seconds before getting down to business.

"There's a spider. In my apartment. It's big and hairy and absolutely hideous-" He nodded along with her words, grasped mildly that this could have been his chance to completely woo the girl.

"I can handle that. Just a moment, let me get a trainer...Glasses..." With that he waved her inside. Some nefarious part of him rubbed his hands together once his back was turned. Small victories, James. Small victories.

He stopped first beside the table near his couch, snatched up his spectacles and shoved them on his nose. Then he could spare a glance toward his neighbor, the poor girl was red in the face from that awful monster hiding in her flat! He could save the day, play the hero part he was born to play. James bent at the waist to snatch a shoe, and didn't get the chance to take note at the way 107 stared at his behind before he'd gotten completely upright and her eyes were averted. Somehow he'd forgotten the whole 'shirtless' notion.

"I'm sorry, did I wake you?" 107 asked while she followed him out of his flat and into her own. He gave her a little shrug.

"Should've been up sooner, anyway. Don't worry about it..." He left a blank where her name should be.

"Lily. Lily Evans," she supplied hesitantly, still concerned at her apparently thoughtless action. "I didn't mean to, I'm sorry. It's just...That thing is ridiculously big!" James chuckled.

"No worries, love. Just show me where it is. I'm James, by the way." The little beastie in the back of his head did victory circles. Now he's gotten somewhere.

"It's in the loo, near the tub." And so he followed her, straight backed and proud of his manly attitude, to her bathroom. He even rested a gentle hand on her shoulder, an action that represented the unspoken 'I'll take it from here, oh beautiful neighbor of mine."

James slowly opened the door to the restroom and peeked his head inside. With his clear sight he looked, scanned the tile floor for the little thing when he finds it. It's black, he dully noted, and small. The pajama-clad man pushed the door open the rest of the way when, to his horror, the monstrosity jumped toward him.

His reaction was too fast and high pitched to have been remotely masculine. James jumped backward and slammed the loo's door, nearly stumbling across Lily. She, in turn, made some tiny, concerned noise on his behalf.

"It. It jumped!" He waved the tennis sneaker in his hand in an aggravated manner, still spooked and horrified at the nightmare only separated from him by a door. Lily merely nodded.

"It did that earlier. Are you quite alright?" James took a moment to compose himself. Faintly, he felt embarrassed. Then that feeling took hold and rushed inward, and left him completely gobsmacked. Had he really reacted so poorly in front of Lily?

Amidst his inner reflection, the red head had done some thinking of her own. James missed the moment she snatched the shoe out of his hand, but snapped-to in time enough to see her tossing open of the door as she jumped inside. He reached out a hand to stop her, but he was already too late.

Seconds later, Lily emerged. The look on her face clearly read 'cat that got the cream', as she held the trainer in one hand back toward James. His mouth hung open for several seconds, which gave her the chance to propose a question.

"Well, now that I've taken care of that, would you care for some tea?" He wouldn't dare deny a woman with such lack of fear. James gave a nod.

Weeks later, Sirius would elbow James in his side and mock him about eight legged beasts and warrior women. James didn't care. His warrior woman could kill anything.


	2. The Warrior Woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The same story, but from another perspective.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song_of_chaos asked if i could write this from lily's point of view, and i hope i managed it. i'm pretty sure my writing style has changed a lot from when the first part was uploaded, but have some notes all the same: lily and severus have a similar friendship from childhood, until someone picks on severus in their sixth form of schooling, and he publicly talks shit about lily. sorry if i'm not the greatest fan of snape...lily is a very smart, very capable, if somewhat romantically inept woman. james and lily are both idiots to not see they have little babycrushes on each other. thanks for reading!

Lily Evans, in another life, could very well have been a criminal mastermind. Her tiny schemes knew no bounds; be it sneakily introducing new recipes as the head of the kitchen at work, or avoiding her old, persistent childhood friend, she had a plan for it all. Imagine her surprise when the man in flat 106, directly to her home’s left, managed to continually escape her grasp.

He moved in nearly five whole months ago. That was five months’ worth of polite smiles and swapping misdirected mail, and five months spent of Lily refusing to ask him to dinner directly. She had no issue doing so, usually. She was completely comfortable in her own skin, and was confident in both her personality and looks enough that if she saw something she wanted, she had no qualms in chasing after it. Despite any flaws or shortcomings, including a somewhat difficult childhood, she was happy with the life she had.

Recently, though...Accepting the life she was dealt had become exponentially harder. An old friend, one who had been completely reliant on her for nearly all of their formative years, had tried to make a return. Lily had thought often of Severus since the end of their sixth form; at first the reminiscing was totally negative. After all, he had publicly humiliated her, including loudly berating how little money her family had, no matter that his own situation was no better than hers. For her closest friend to cut so deep had left Lily hollow inside for many years. It took her overwhelming acceptance into the community of a very prestigious culinary university to aide her in truly forgiving the damage he had done. Recalling the snarl on his face as he openly and falsely predicted a life for her filled with nothing but dreams unmet and a pointless existence had only served to push her harder. If anything, she could have a twisted sense of thanks to the first boy to ever truly break her heart. Without him, Lily believes, she wouldn’t have had anyone to prove wrong.

Imagine her surprise to find that very boy outside her door, grown up into a gangly, gaunt faced man. The peephole had done him little justice, and she hadn’t known who she was opening the door up to until she had done so. The conversation that carried out above her joyful welcome mat had not been pleasant. Her refusal to let him through the threshold had been met with obvious irritation; why he thought that would make her any more likely to accept him, she hadn’t known. His roundabout apology had sparked guilt in her chest, if only for a moment, before it turned into outright indignation. Hearing Severus place the blame for the situation on her erased any doubt she had about his character, and she ended up slamming the door in his face.

Meeting her self doubt personified made things difficult, to say the least. Her previous ploys of exchanging mail with 106 hadn’t led anywhere so far, and the unwanted return of Severus made things messy. Lily had the feeling 106 had seen the man outside her door, and dearly she hoped he hadn’t muddled things for her. She had several old ideas to introduce herself, but none so far made her out to be anything but a neighbor hoping too hard for a date. It was just after breakfast on a cloudy Sunday when she saw the tiny spider on her bathroom’s floor. Just before, over perhaps the best french toast she’d ever made, Lily had decided that enough was enough. Seeing that tiny little thing try and hide behind the toilet was like a nail in the coffin of her hesitation. Enough was finally enough.

That found her knocking on the door to flat 106. There was a thump from not too far behind the entryway; the brief seconds before the door was opened gave her enough time to wonder if, perhaps, he was even awake so early, and then the door was thrown open and she was absolutely face to chest with the flat’s very, very handsome resident. Lily’s face burned hot and she heard him speak, softly and gentle as anything, but it took the little dip of his shoulders he took to meet her eyes for her daze to be broken. She blinked once, twice, and gathered herself once more.

“There is! A spider. In my apartment, and it’s big and hairy and just  _ hideous _ -” there she faked terror at the memory of the itsy bitsy spider hanging out in her bathroom. 106 nodded and ushered her in as he probably sought out proper clothing. Lily allowed herself a winning grin once his back was turned; for a split second decision it was working out well! Saw him shirtless and got invited in, that was so much more than a brief hello in the hallway. 106 turned to face her, now with glasses, and she quickly smoothed her expression into worry. She didn’t look away as he bent to grab up a sneaker from the living room floor, and instead focused on the curve of his rear. It was purely luck that steered her sight away just as he stood upright and looked back at her.

“I’m so sorry...Did I wake you?” She gestured at the couch, where she guessed then that he’d fallen off of when she knocked. The sheepish smile and shrug he gave in return was endearing. She gave her name and apologized again.

“No worries,  _ love _ . Just show me where it is. I’m James, by the way.” And damn her if the endearment didn’t heat her cheeks right back up. Lily did smile then, directly at him, and maybe it was that she was so much more observing than James, because she did notice the blush that heated his cheeks. 

Post leading him back to her own apartment, she was unprepared for what happened. James returning from the bathroom quickly with a squawk of fright was startling in how hard it was to not laugh. She tutted softly instead.

“It  _ jumped _ !” The fear clearly on his face nearly did make her laugh, then, but it was truly time to take matters into her own hands. Lily set her face and took the sneaker from his hand. Poor James looked terrified as she knocked the door to the bathroom open and went in the finish the job.

Lily really couldn’t help herself when she returned. She did laugh, while holding the shoe back out to James, and then asked him over for tea. His quick nods in answer made her grin widen.

“You can come to me if you ever find a spider in your own place, you know,” and damn her if the smile on his face wasn’t one of her new favorite sights.

 


End file.
